Saturday, January 7, 2017

10 Crockpot Freezer Meals

Ingredients at the ready. Recipes on the tablet.

Just before Christmas, I stumbled upon a StockpilingMoms blog for making 20 crockpot freezer meals in 4 hours. Simply add raw meat, vegetables and other stuff to a gallon size freezer bag and stick in the freezer. When ready to use thaw overnight in the refrigerator, pop in the crockpot and 6 or 8 hours later dinner is ready.

The time saving appealed to me. Also we're all on different schedules so cooking once and having enough for people to heat and eat when they are ready works out well. Cooking a large quantity of 6 to 8 servings makes it convenient to have portions for people to take lunch/dinner to work or just lunch/dinner leftovers.

Though the refrigerator is large, the freezer isn't big enough to hold 20 freezer bags plus sundry meats and frozen veg. Fortunately, the blog also had recipes and shopping lists for 10 crockpot freezer meals in 2 hours. (There were recipes for 8 meals too, but I figured what's 2 more) After the holidays, there was sufficient room in the freezer to give this method a try.

I sent Himself off with the shopping list provided. The method is label freezer storage bags with recipe title, cook time, and other ingredients or instructions that need to be added later or just before serving. It took me an hour or so longer to chop vegetables, assemble ingredients, and fill the bags for all the meals. Rather than chop all vegetable at the same time, I went through the recipes one by one. I found that I had printed an incomplete grocery list and some items, mostly canned corn and black beans were missing. Not crucial, as those items could be added at the time of cooking (if someone remembers to add missing items to the next shopping list. Note to self) One other item I would add to the grocery list, would be to get some slow cooker liners. These are special plastic liners that you put inside your crockpot and dump your ingredients in when ready to cook. The liners make clean up a breeze. I never use my crockpot without them.